Brands find newer ways to bring celebrities choices home, to meet demands of millennials
It may sound weird but it's true. You can now go the celebrity way. Shop what they wear and even of their choice in a way best facilitated by brands.
This new form of marketing takes big leaps from the old-style brand endorsements by celebrities, who subsisted to print and TV ads. The traditional forms are unable to evoke the brand loyalty that they did, earlier, pushing newer brands to adopt methods that connect with millennial buyers who are known to be fussier and demanding shoppers.
Fashion lovers will no longer have to religiously follow celebrity trends, map the look which comes closest to it, and scout for them. LabelLife, an online e-commerce portal, brings clothes, accessories and furnishings handpicked by celebrities. Actresses Bipasha Basu and Malaika Arora, interior designer and socialite Suzanne Khan will model for the products they like and act as ‘personal shopping guides’. What’s more, if a buyer is confused about a product, they can even tweet the celebrity and get fashion advice right from the style icon.
“The campaigns are responding to the need of millennials or Generation Y and Generation X to constantly experiment with their purchases. Brands too are not expecting loyalty to a single brand, to provide interesting purchase options in interesting ways. There are many e-commerce portals and there is very little difference between them. It can be a tool which adds distinctiveness,” says Kiran Khalap, managing director and co-founder of Chlorophyll, a brand consultancy.
Millennials are nevertheless enamoured by celebrity lifestyle as much as the earlier generations. However, increased celebrity involvement can bring in the extra punch into marketing. “It certainly brings in a greater degree of integrity. When a product is picked and chosen, it is stronger than a brand endorsement and is certainly more believable,” said Harish Bijoor, brand expert and CEO of private label consultancy, Harish Bijoor Consults.
While some brands are choosing to involve their brand ambassadors deeply into their businesses, some others are choosing snappier ways to engage with digital-age consumers. A few months back at the height of the demonetization wave, while everyone was fighting cash crunch, digital wallets and payment gateways went on an advertising overdrive. Food delivery service Foodpanda.in did a short and snappy campaign to showcase the advantages of online payments while ordering food.
Foodpanda made a few home videos of a hungry Leone prodding her husband to order food, dancing when it arrives and looking through her menu. The made-from-mobile, one minute or less videos, were shared on her Twitter handle as well. These videos along with her other posts, can reach its target audience directly. While the campaign was short-lived and served its purpose, the philosophy of Leone campaign is same as that of LabelLife, which is bringing glimpses of celebrity life and lifestyle closer to their admirers.
According to Khalap, the brand recall and the connect that brands will be able to achieve through these forms of advertisements are much higher. “Such campaigns when done consistently, instead of a touch-and-go method, can become successful in the long run,” he says.
...& ANALYSIS
- Some brands are choosing snappier ways to engage with digital-age consumer
- Brand recall and connect that brands can get through them is higher
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